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The magic of Lamborghini on a Sunday morning

It’s a well-known fact that the Adelaide Hills are teeming with interesting and exotic vehicles of all kinds on sunny Sunday mornings, and why not? Before nine the roads are largely devoid of the Sunday lunch crowds, the coffee shops are beginning to open their doors and the mornings are warm and balmy now that we’re coming into spring.

Throw in the fact that it was father’s day last Sunday and you’ve got a perfect storm of car hunting.

We were having breakfast at Stirling’s Miss Perez cafe on the Fiat Lancia club’s traditional Father’s Day run, and had arrived to find this Ferrari 599 GTB parked on Druid Avenue. I didn’t catch the make of wheels it was sitting on, but they are certainly inspired by the blistering 599 GTO and I think they suit the big V12 to a tee. It was running some sort of modified exhaust system too, and the noise on startup was to die for.

Across from it was parked one of the most photographed cars in Adelaide, one which has been strangely absent from Any Given Reason until now – the Lamborghini Aventador LP720-4 50 Anniversario, in a striking shade of yellow called Giallo Maggio. These quick shots don’t accurately represent this colour properly – it’s a lot richer and less ‘lemony’ in real life and really pops against the satin black.

As the name somewhat hints, this version of the Aventador celebrated Lamborghini’s 50th Anniversary in 2013 and just 200 were built.

It has 20hp more than the already brutish Aventador, taking the total to 720hp, and a redesigned aero kit which is most prominently seen at the rear.

As we were taking in the details of the 50 Anniversario a hollow shrill could be heard coming toward us. But from where? Our heads snapped around in every direction and we couldn’t see anything, until this Aventador LP 700-4 Roadster turned into Druids Avenue as well. This is another of the most seen and photographed cars in Adelaide, and I’m sure many readers will now be recounting just what this thing sounds like. It cuts through the din of daily life no matter where it goes, reminding us that as the world moves toward smaller and smaller engines there’s still no substitute for a big displacement, naturally aspirated V12.

Finely styled coupes often loose their purity of design when the roof is removed for open air motoring (the Porsche 911 convertibles and Ferrari 360/430 Spiders aren’t as cohesive as their lidded brethren) but the Aventador hasn’t lost a thing. If anything, it’s more.

That hard top, that stores behind the seats, really is a mastery of packaging.

These are both mid-engined, Italian sports cars with two seats and a removable hardtop roof, right? The Fiat won’t do 0-100km/h in three seconds flat and doesn’t quite hit 350km/h, though. The similarities are endless, other than that.

With coffee consumed, and the Aventador pair and 599 now joined by a Gallardo Spyer, the four Italian throughbreds dropped jaws as they continued on the Sunday morning drive. What was more heartening, even than seeing or hearing these machines, was the knowledge that they are being regularly used and enjoyed as their makers intended.

Words and photos by Andrew Coles

Any Given Reason’s recent tour of the official museum at Lamborghini’s Sant’agata Bolognese factory can be found here.